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SEVEN: The Missing Bride's Secret
تاريخ النشر:
2026-07-15 21:24:27
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THE BILLIONAIRE'S STAND-IN BRIDE SIXTY-ONE
Aria’s POV Morning came too fast after too little sleep, and I found Romanov already in the study when I came downstairs, dark circles under his eyes suggesting he’d never actually gone to bed. “You didn’t rest,” I said. “I rested enough,” he said, which wasn’t an answer at all. Dmitri arrived a few minutes later, a tablet under his arm and the brisk energy of someone who’d found something worth losing sleep over. “I ran everything Marta gave us against what we already had,” he said. “The name Voss checks out against three separate threads we’ve been tracking independently. Reyes’s financial trail, the shell structure funding your father’s retainer, and now this.” “Meaning it’s not a coincidence,” Romanov said. “Meaning whoever’s running this has been consistent for years,” Dmitri said. “Same name, same fear, same structure, reused across every layer we’ve uncovered. If Voss really is alive, or if someone’s simply wearing his authority like a mask, either way, he’s the thread
THE BILLIONAIRE'S STAND-IN BRIDE SIXTY: The Beginning of the Correction
Aria’s POV Marta’s hands stayed folded in her lap, steady despite everything, as she began to speak. “The man who recruited me called himself Reyes,” she said. “I doubt that’s his real name. Everyone in this network seems to borrow names the way other people borrow coats—useful for the season, discarded the moment they stop fitting.” “What did he ask you to do?” Romanov asked. “At first, almost nothing,” Marta said. “Report on schedules. Who came and went. Small things that felt harmless enough to justify taking his money without feeling like I’d betrayed anyone. That’s how they do it. They never ask for the whole betrayal at once. They ask for pieces, small enough that you can tell yourself you haven’t really done anything wrong.” “And later?” I asked. “Later, the requests grew,” Marta said. “Which rooms you used most. Which staff members seemed loyal enough to trust with sensitive tasks. When security rotations changed. By the time I understood how much I’d already given them
THE BILLIONAIRE'S STAND-IN BRIDE FIFTY-NINE: The Family That Vanished
Aria’s POV The room went utterly silent. “Whose account?” Romanov asked, his voice gone flat in the way that meant he was holding something back by force. “I can’t get a name yet,” Dmitri said. “The receiving end is routed through a payroll intermediary, one of the third-party services we use for contract staff. I’ll need another hour to unmask it properly, maybe less if I push the trace harder than I should.” “Push it,” Romanov said. “I don’t care what corners you cut tonight.” Dmitri didn’t answer, already back at the keyboard, his fingers moving fast despite the exhaustion visibly dragging at every line of his face. I sat with the weight of it, the same cold dread from earlier settling deeper now that it had a shape—someone under this roof, someone paid twice in the same week the operation had nearly cost us Elena’s life, someone we’d walked past in a hallway or nodded to over breakfast without ever suspecting. “It could be staff we haven’t even considered yet,” I said. “So
THE BILLIONAIRE'S STAND-IN BRIDE FIFTY-EIGHT: My Mother's Secret
Aria’s POV The relief didn’t last past the front gate. Romanov was already on the phone before the car fully stopped, his voice sharp with the same controlled urgency he’d carried into the warehouse. “I want everyone who knew we moved the timeline early brought into the study,” he said. “Now. No exceptions.” Elena stirred beside me, wincing as she straightened, some of the exhaustion burning off at the tone in his voice. “You’re doing this tonight.” “I’m doing this the moment we’re inside,” Romanov said. “Whoever warned them isn’t getting a full night’s sleep to prepare an excuse.” We moved into the house together, Dmitri already pulling up the access logs on his tablet before we’d even reached the study, cross-referencing who had known about the shifted timeline and when. “Five people,” Dmitri said, laying it out on the desk the moment we were all inside. “Myself. Romanov. Aria. The two guards who helped coordinate the extraction team.” “The guards didn’t know until an hour
THE BILLIONAIRE'S STAND-IN BRIDE FIFTY-SEVEN: The Fourth Bloodline
Aria’s POV The drive to the docks took eleven minutes, though it felt like an hour with the case holding the journal sitting heavy across my lap and every streetlight blurring past like something I’d remember for the rest of my life if this went wrong. Romanov drove himself, refusing to let anyone else take the wheel, his knuckles pale against the steering wheel despite the controlled calm he’d forced back into his voice the moment we left the estate. “Dmitri’s team is already positioning,” he said, glancing at the phone mounted on the dash. “Three men on the perimeter, two more covering the water side in case they try to move her by boat.” “And us?” I asked. “We go in through the loading entrance,” he said. “Dmitri confirmed it’s the least monitored access point. If Elena’s inside, that’s our fastest route to her.” “You mean my fastest route,” I said. “You’re not staying in the car.” “No,” Romanov said. “I’m not.” We arrived to find the warehouse district exactly as bleak as
THE BILLIONAIRE'S STAND-IN BRIDE FIFTY-SIX: The Hunter's Trap
Aria’s POV “Six hours,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. “They moved her before the messenger even reached us.” Romanov called Dmitri immediately, the phone on speaker between us. “Tell me everything.” “Either the thermal signature wasn’t Elena, or she’d already been moved hours before we pulled satellite coverage,” Dmitri said, his voice tight with the particular frustration of a man realizing he’d been chasing a decoy. “Either way, that building’s cold now. Whoever’s left inside isn’t restrained.” “Then the trade offer,” Romanov said slowly, “was never about exchanging her at midnight. It was about keeping us focused on a location she’d already left.” “That would explain why they didn’t seem worried about us finding the factory,” Dmitri said. “They wanted us looking there. It bought them time to move her somewhere we haven’t thought to check.” My chest tightened with something between fear and fury. “So the entire negotiation in the woods was a distraction too.” “M
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